If the Smithsonian Institution was more interested in promoting a patriotic version of U.S. history, would it put the Abolitionist Founding Fathers on display?

PGA Weblog ^ | 8/23/25

[Wallace T.]

Except for California, none of the territories west of Texas and what became Oklahoma were suitable for intensive cotton production. Even in California, it was the various water projects in the early 20th Century that made that state so agriculturally productive. There were some areas in California that could have produced cotton without irrigation but shipping out of San Francisco, the only real seaport at the time, would not have been able to compete with Southern and other cotton, especially a half century before the Panama Canal was completed.

Slavery in the Western territories was a nonstarter because the West was either too dry or too cold for cash crops like cotton that needed intensive labor. The Southern secession was more driven by the opportunity to expand slavery into the Caribbean islands and Latin America. This was the vision of the Knights of the Golden Circle. Spain's grasp on Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico was weak. They had visions of taking parts of eastern Mexico but the French beat them to that country.

[Ditto]

I started noticing a pattern of "Ivy League" education, and generally coming from the "elite" of the Northeast.

You can call them “ elite” if you want. I just call them Democrats doing what Democrats have done since the days of Andy Jackson, the Civil War Democrats who ran the Confederacy on to the FDR, LBJ and now Obama Democrats… scheming for more and more power.

I’m an old guy now… old enough to remember when the segregationists were all democrats… Falbus, Wallace, Fulbright, Johnson, Byrd, Gore, even Biden. They were segregationists because that gave them power. Once they realized blacks were getting the right to vote, they switched in an instant and became civil rights champions which gave them power.

You have a problem with the deep state, don’t blame the Civil War. Blame the corrupt Democrat party.

[Ditto]

The original slave states of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Rhode Island all voted to include in the Constitution the ability to continue the importation of slaves and the return of fugitive slaves and you say that is not a pro-slavery document?

Ya… so what’s your point? It is not a pro slavery document. It is not anti slavery either. It simply accepts slavery as a fact although it never mentions the word.

[jeffersondem]

“It is not a pro slavery document.”

It is pro-slavery but not until Article I. And then only in the sense that that it based political power in the House of Representatives on the ratio of free persons to “all other Persons” (and excluding Indians not taxed); that it allowed the continued importation of slaves; and that it required the return of fugitive slaves.

Do you have any information that would help identify what is meant by “all other Persons”?

[Ditto]

Jefferson Davis didn’t agree with you.

One of the positions laid down by the honorable Senator from Kentucky, and which he denominated as one of his two truths, was, that slavery was excluded from the Territories of California and New Mexico by a decree of Nature. From that opinion I dissent. I hold that the pursuit of gold-washing and mining is better adapted to slave labor than to any other species of labor recognized among us, and is likely to be found in that new country for many years to come.

Source: SPEECH of MR. DAVIS, OF MISSISSIPPI,
ON THE SUBJECT OF
SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 13 & 14, 1850.

http://civilwarcauses.org/davis1850.htm

[Ditto]

that it allowed the continued importation of slaves

Until the year 1808, at which time Congress banned further importation.

[Wallace T.]

That was Davis's opinion in 1850. Was that his opinion in 1861? By 1855, the California Gold Rush was over. Many of the Forty Niners had returned to their original homes by 1861. The thinking of Southern leaders was more towards expansion into the Caribbean and northern Latin America.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, they went with no legitimate reason.

If I ask you about your right to freedom of speech, are we to not allow you to speak unless you have a good reason?

If I ask you about your right to own a gun, should I make sure you have a good reason for owning one?

Does a *RIGHT* require permission from other people to insure it is being exercised for a good reason?

They left. They had a right to do so. Whether their reasons were good or not is immaterial to the fact they had a right to leave if they so chose.

His only real promise was to block the spread of slavery to the territories.

You may not be aware of the various discussions that has been had on this subject here on free republic. A lot of people have been told, and fully believe, the country was on the verge of having slavery "expand" into the territories.

Apart from the fact that the people of an area ought to have a right to decide for themselves what they think on any particular political point, slavery wasn't going to "expand" anywhere, at least not to any significant degree.

The Reason slavery existed in the South was because it was profitable. You could grow crops that you could sell for cash? You know what you can grow in the territories back in 1860? *NOTHING*. Even today, the only cotton growing in "the territories" is at irrigation hubs created by pumping water up from the Ogallala Aquifer, which couldn't be done in the 19th century.

So no cotton, no tobacco, no sugar, no indigo, no hemp, no corn, no nothing.

So what were the slaves going to do when they "expanded" into the territories? Well a man would have to be a fool to take slaves into the territories rather than leave them in Mississippi or Louisiana where each one could earn substantial money for him.

"Expansion" was a lie, meant to fearmonger and create opposition to slavery, not because it meant actual slaves in the territory, but to keep any state formed out of the territory from electing Senators that would favor the South.

You see, they had the game rigged pretty good to make the South pay for most everything. Abraham Lincoln himself said his yearly tax revenue from the south amounted to 65 million per year. So long as the South didn't have enough Senators or congressmen, they could keep siphoning money out of it.

It's about the money.

But he promised not to touch slavery where it already existed.

Well he certainly kept that promise to the Northern states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia and Delaware.

More bloodthirsty than George III.?

George III could have won that war had he just kept hammering, but he wanted the bloodshed to stop.

So unlike the patriots of 1776, your treasonous hero’s of 1861 were fighting for only one thing… to spread slavery.

So their enemies have said since before the war, with it being impossible the entire time. Yet people believe them, rather than checking for themselves.

Here is a modern cotton map. Perhaps you can point out a place where slavery could have spread to.

Bear in mind that California, Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas all require irrigation systems to grow cotton there. As for the rest of the "territories", if they can't grow cotton there today, they couldn't grow it there in the 1860s either.

[DiogenesLamp]

Except for California, none of the territories west of Texas and what became Oklahoma were suitable for intensive cotton production. Even in California, it was the various water projects in the early 20th Century that made that state so agriculturally productive. There were some areas in California that could have produced cotton without irrigation but shipping out of San Francisco, the only real seaport at the time, would not have been able to compete with Southern and other cotton, especially a half century before the Panama Canal was completed.

Slavery in the Western territories was a nonstarter because the West was either too dry or too cold for cash crops like cotton that needed intensive labor. The Southern secession was more driven by the opportunity to expand slavery into the Caribbean islands and Latin America. This was the vision of the Knights of the Golden Circle. Spain's grasp on Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico was weak. They had visions of taking parts of eastern Mexico but the French beat them to that country.

Thank you. Perhaps Ditto will be more inclined to believe it if it comes from someone other than me.

[DiogenesLamp]

You can call them “ elite” if you want. I just call them Democrats doing what Democrats have done since the days of Andy Jackson,

And the Northeast was a Democrat stronghold in the 1860s?

Were the Republicans strong in the South?

I’m an old guy now… old enough to remember when the segregationists were all democrats… Falbus, Wallace, Fulbright, Johnson, Byrd, Gore, even Biden. They were segregationists because that gave them power. Once they realized blacks were getting the right to vote, they switched in an instant and became civil rights champions which gave them power.

Odd that the blacks switched from voting straight Republican to voting straight Democrat. How did that happen?

[Fledermaus]

Hard to grow cotton in the desert. Who knew? 😀

[DiogenesLamp]

One of the positions laid down by the honorable Senator from Kentucky, and which he denominated as one of his two truths, was, that slavery was excluded from the Territories of California and New Mexico by a decree of Nature. From that opinion I dissent. I hold that the pursuit of gold-washing and mining is better adapted to slave labor than to any other species of labor recognized among us, and is likely to be found in that new country for many years to come.

Odd thing then. Back in those days, there wasn't much concern for people taking slaves into New Mexico territory. Sure, it was theoretically banned, but it wasn't enforced, and nobody cared. They pretty much just extended the line at 36°30' latitude.

So reading the wikipedia entry on "New Mexico Territory", I find this little nugget.

"Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and others maintained that the territory could not restrict slavery, as under the earlier Missouri Compromise. Others, including Abraham Lincoln, insisted that older Mexican Republic legal traditions of the territory, which abolished black slavery in 1834, took precedence and should be continued. (Indian slavery had been abolished in Spanish colonies in 1769.) Regardless of the official status, slavery was rare in antebellum New Mexico. Black slaves never numbered more than about a dozen."

Other sources i've ran across also seem to support the conclusion that black slaves were extremely rare in New Mexico territory.

[DiogenesLamp]

Hard to grow cotton in the desert. Who knew? 😀

Right? I've been through that area. I don't know why anyone would want to live out there.

A week or so ago I watched a video about Zachary Taylor. It talked about how he came to be president. While watching it I was surprised to learn that Zachary Taylor dismissed all concerns about slavery "expanding" into the territories. Turns out he had been all through that area during the Mexican/American war, and knew the idea was ridiculous.

He was a Henry Clay Whig, not a Democrat. Henry Clay was also Lincoln's mentor. He imbued Lincoln with the idea of "Mercantilism", which in my opinion is a little too activist government for my tastes.

[Ditto]

The Reason slavery existed in the South was because it was profitable. You could grow crops that you could sell for cash? You know what you can grow in the territories back in 1860?

Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and all the other free states managed to profitably grow cash crops without slavery. As to the territories, I’d say Kansas, Nebraska, Eastern Colorado, Wyoming, and most areas outside the Desert SW are pretty good areas for crops and livestock as well. The Homesteaders who went out there generally did very well for themselves… better than the mud sill farmer in the south.

As to your ilimformed comments on slaves used in mining, I’d point out that gold and silver mining moved from California to Nevada, and Arizona and Colorado while copper mining began in several Western states in later years. After all, the first slaves sent across the ocean by the Spanish were worked to death in the gold and silver mines. If your confederates could have used slaves for that work they would have gladly worked them to death doing so. After all, it was very profitable. ;~((

[Ditto]

Odd that the blacks switched from voting straight Republican to voting straight Democrat. How did that happen?

Free stuff coupled with Democrat lies.

[Ditto]

Odd that the blacks switched from voting straight Republican to voting straight Democrat. How did that happen?

Free stuff coupled with Democrat lies.

[Ditto]

Odd that the blacks switched from voting straight Republican to voting straight Democrat. How did that happen?

Free stuff coupled with Democrat lies.

[MayflowerMadam]

Someone needs to pass on this question to Truth Social and/or Ric Grenell — or whomever is heading up this investigation.

[jeffersondem]

“Until the year 1808, at which time Congress banned further importation.”

Article I, Section 9 - when taken in context - sounds pro-slavery to me.

Do you agree or disagree?

[Ditto]

Were the Republicans strong in the South?

The Republicans were not even on the ballot in seven Southern states. If they had canvassed to get on the ballot, they would have literally been killed. That’s how much your Confederates cared about the Republic.